Thanks Dan
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 1:56pm | Edit Note | Delete
Ok i know how weird this sounds ...but one of the great things about this journey our family is on is the privelege we have of meeting amazing people, ones we wouldn't have met otherwise.
A few days after Ashley was diagnosed i remember sitting in her room and some guy popping his head in and saying "pizza for everyone in the playroom" in an extremely cheery mood. I thought to myself"buddy do you know where you are , do you realize what ward your on"? first off these kids probably aren't craving anything beyond one ingredient (bland) that requires chewing and second of all whats with the joyous tone " does he not realize where he is"! well i soon learned that this was a common occurance on the oncology ward and that the pizza wasn't necessarily for the kids it was for everyone on the ward to enjoy and conjugate over, it was a way of adding some joy into everyone's lives. The pizza was supplied by "balding For Dollars " and the "joyous" guy that was the head of this organization (for thosse of you who are unfamiliar with balding for dollars, see the end of this blog)... was Dan , i thought to myself does this guy know what things are like up here on 3B? ... well i soon found out that yes he did all to well , his son died of cancer at he age of 12 and he found comfort and joy i suppose in heading up Balding for dollars hoping to bring joy and relief into kids and families dealing with cancer. Since then we have become fond contributors and recipinets of balding ....As many of you know last years fundraiser included Stefanny , Darcy , Jens, and later Brittanny, we raised quite a bit of money and im glad we( i use that term "we" loosely) did because they have given back to us so much. when Ashley lost a good part of hearing due to one of the chemo drugs it was Balding for Dollars and Dans cooperation that Ashley should get an IPOD to illeviate some of her hearing intrusions, Ashley was able to go on an amazing horseback trip last year that Balding initiates as part of their teen adventures program, i can' tell you what it has meant to have this soft place to land when things are hard.
Anyways, Dan phoned me this morning to invite us to a hockey game where the oncology kids will be honoured, arranged of course by Dan, i gratefully thanked him and asked him how he was....Well, he went on to tell me that his daughter had recently died from cancer... if you're keeping track... thats two kids lost to this horrible friggin disease. I nearly started crying but went into "how are you coping"i call it ..."loriism" or "questionism"because it is just how im getting through this... leaning on people , talking to them, getting their take on it... etc. it helps formulate this sprirtiual journey i find myself on, so if ive asked you recently "how did you get through that" or "what do you think helped you" or" what do you think" please don't think i'm nosey it is a compliment to you it is because i value what youve been through , your ideas , your wisdom ,, i take it with me.
Dan went on to tell me what an inspiration his daughter was and how she found joy in all the plans she still made with her 8 year battle. I asked Dan if he was religious and he told me he studied for years to become a priest but found himself more of a spiritual person now and told me that his daughter described her idea of religion or higher power or God or whatever you call it as the love that people show to one another, humankind , love between people,not just our immediate circle but beyond...he told me that she still found joy in her life and still lived it and that he and his family didn't let this rob them of the joy they still have with one another , that it has been difficult but that their daughter would still want them to make plans and live their life just as she did.
This idea correlated with what i had heard recently about joy , that we can have it in any circumstance, this is not to be confused with happiness, happiness is transient it comes and goes but joy is appreciation for all that we do have, it is knowing and having faith that everything will be ok, not perfect, not ideal, but that we'll be ok.
Peace and Joy,
Lori
Just for interest sake Balding for Dollars as you may have guessed is a fundraising charity that provides outtings, trips, funds, tickets, spa days, fun days, celebrity days, fun lunches,supplies on the ward, extras, and joy for children and their families dealing with cancer. Their big fundraiser is coming up i will keep you posted with more information regarding this event.
The Journey of a butterfly...Ashleys life has become symbolic of a butterfly, peaceful beautiful and free to fly where the wind takes her. We have a white butterfly that flies around us in the garden in the springtime where the other girls play. Irish folklore tells us that a white butterfly is the rebirth of a deceased child's soul reborn into something even more beautiful than before...our butterfly
June 29 1992 - February 16 2009
Welcome to the Journey of a Butterfly
We invite you to follow along one family's journey through grief and loss, one brave young girl's journey through faith and inspiration, this is not a blog to convert anyone , nor is it a blog about fundraising , it is what i hope will reach another family on a similar journey, we are not experts , i could not give you a magic remedy for how one gets through disease and devestation but it is our story , sometimes gut wrenching other time heartwarming and all of the time, i guarantee, very real. We are not perfect, we struggle daily and i think that the more we connect to one another the more we understand what this journey through life is all about . Sometimes that path is bumpy and we fall down, sometimes we sit and stop a while,or take a step back and other times we pound our fists on the pavement like a lunatic , still other times we find ourselves picking eachother up dusting eachother off and walking alongside them even if only for short time. This blog is dedicated to Ashley , her sisters and every single angel that picked us up along this road.
This is an introduction to the beginning and middle part of our journey the specific blogs are more indepth , the end...well there will never be an end to this journey i've come to realize that , not on this earth, for now we just assimilate it into our life like a hole , a missing limb, a continous ache that you just learn to live with.
When Ashley was about 12 years old she asked if she could go to youth group at a local church , i didn't have any church upbringing but know i craved it throughout my life , this was a rare opportunity and i recognized that if i didn't embrace it now she may lose her interst in it very quickly and beocme a jaded, cynical, stubborn person like her mom. My husband grew up in a very religious (shove it down your throat) kinda religion( i wont mention any names)or maybe it was the way he was raised ? Anyways i encouraged her to go because the community we had moved to embraced this kinda thing so i thought why not? Naturally and shortly after she started attending she was soon encouraging us to go , she had made quite a leadership name for herself there , pionner leader , sunday school helper etc, i was comfortable for the first time in my life going to a church, maybe it was the first word that greeted you as you walked in..."belong" maybe it was because they embraced community and outreach service in our city , dont know, but soon found it very therapeutic, cheaper than a shrink, and our other 3 girls jumped on board pretty quickly, my husband well... a work in progress , he communes with God in a fishing boat he says , although makes many efforts to go even if just for good way to start the week, i was still cynical , felt i wasnt holy enough but went anyways.
Ashley was scheduled to sing a solo in the church choir Dec 16 2007 , i was scared for her, i was sure she got her singing skills from me which was nil at best. She sang beautifully and you couldnt tell she had been complaining of cramps , something i chalked up to girls stuff/growing pains for a couple weeks off and on, she was an active healthy girl. When the performnce was done we got our christmas tree and i took her to the clinic to have it checked out before Christmas , they sent us to our local hosptial for tests , i was worried it was appendix. Darcy, my husband left the hosptial to go pick up our other 3 girls from friends houses , i caught the doctor in the ahallways and asked if the ulstrasound pictures were back, i remember having eye contact with Ashley only feet away from me but far enough away for her not to hear the doctor to so impassionaltely say "its not appendix, it looks like cancer", i have to stop as i write this because it is still one of the 2 biggest shocks in my entire life, i think i ran down the hallways screaming with no sound coming from my throat and not knowing where i was running . I phoned Darcy and words didnt come out of my mouth. Before I knew it we were at out local Childrens Hospital(100km away) meeting oncologiosts , being give an "oncology team" which consisted of a primary nurse, a social worker, a main oncologist and a shrink....wait a minute ...what is an oncologist? yep, a cancer doctor, this was the real thing . we waited 4 days to find out what type we were dealing with ... it was curable 90 % even though she was stage 4 , how the hell can my kid have stage 4 cancer and only a few cramps , it was mind bending. We were thrown stright into a world so foriegn to us , everything stopped ..jobs ..PAC meetings ,carppoling and yes even some friends who"couldn't handle it" it was no longer our own beds , our own home, our own anything. Treatments and life became unbearable , the 90% cure rate was not looking good at any stage throughout our journey , it seemd to be always full of negative news to the point where i couldnt stand the face of her oncologist , it nearly made me want to vomit everytime i saw him...The words they briefed us on as we began this mind altering path was " one of you will grieve through this process and no matter the out come the other will grieve after " they couldn't have been more right.......Ashley insisted on going to church on Christmas eve, two nights before she was to start chemo at the end of the service our pastor came to pray with us , i didn't know many people in the church , but wow did they know Ashley, when we rose our heads from bowing in prayer the whole congregation was surrounding us , i knew at that moment who i was going to need to get me through this ...would he be willing to listen to me...
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